


Between Hope and Ash

by babble_bee



Category: The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Accidental Baby Acquisition, Accidental Grogu | Baby Yoda Acquisition, Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Childhood Trauma, Din Djarin Is Trying His Best, Din Djarin Needs a Hug, Emotional Constipation, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Family, Father-Son Relationship, Force Healing (Star Wars), Gen, Injury, ManDadlorian, POV Din Djarin, POV Grogu | Baby Yoda, Parenthood, Protective Din Djarin, Protective Grogu | Baby Yoda, Sick Character, and a nap, and that's what it's like to love this show baby, emotional bonding via comforting each other after a nightmare, is that a trope? it should be bc i love it, no beta we die like men, this started out as a fluffy drabble and ended up with multiple chapters of angst
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-09
Updated: 2021-02-23
Packaged: 2021-03-15 02:59:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,533
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29306901
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/babble_bee/pseuds/babble_bee
Summary: He supposed his introduction to parenthood was as startlingly abrupt as it was for most other beings in the galaxy. One day, he didn't have a kid. The next he did. And he did for every day thereafter.--After Corvus, Grogu is sick, it's up to Din to take care of him, and perhaps realize it's okay to be taken care of too.Takes place between Chapter 13 and Chapter 14.
Relationships: Din Djarin & Grogu | Baby Yoda
Comments: 22
Kudos: 88





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I was watching The Tragedy and noticed Din's apparent exhaustion (forgetting the damn jetpack and trying three times to run headfirst into a forcefield, bless him) and also that Pedro sounded a tiny bit congested. So, I wondered, we don't know how much time passed between chapter 13 and 14, what if someone had gotten sick?
> 
> This started out as a short drabble, relatively fluffy once, but it grew into many chapters of angst and character-exploring. And you know what we call that? *gestures with hand* Suffering.
> 
> Also I've accidentally acquired something resembling a plot, send help.  
> Chapter count may go up.

When he finally settled into the pilot chair, his back and arms screaming their aching grievances, Din thought he might just start crying too.

He'd spent the entire night trying to soothe the kid— _Grogu_ , he reminded himself—to sleep as his little body burned with some kind of fever. Even after hours and hours and hours of holding, and rocking, and whispering, Grogu cried. Watery cries and raspy cries and miserable cries.

The chrono heralded the dawn of the next day (though in space it all looked the same) before the baby had finally settled into a disquieted sleep, and Din could finally put him down and return to pilot's console, and figure out what to do.

At first, he'd worried that the kid had somehow been poisoned by an unseen wildlife on Corvus. Damn it, he'd _told_ the kid to stop playing in the little green pond the tyke had somehow found amidst the swaths of torched, ashen forest. That had been the morning before they planned to storm the Magistrate.

Granted, Din only told him that once. After seeing the little one babble contentedly as he gathered up a small pile of smooth rocks, he had sighed and simply said, “be careful.”

Ahsoka hadn't minded the delay, or at least didn't say so, instead giving both him and Grogu a cryptic look that Din couldn't parse, and went to prepare elsewhere. And, well, at the time Din wasn't sure how much longer he had left with the kid, to be able to watch him, happy, playing.

Which was certainly a stark difference to barely a few days later.

The scanner from his medpac had soon ruled out poison, which was both good and bad. Good, in that he was obviously glad the little one wasn't poisoned by some unknown source. Bad, in that he didn't know what it was giving him the fever and making him ill and so clearly (and loudly) miserable.

Out of pure habit, he glanced over his shoulder at the co-pilot seat, and almost startled when he saw it lying empty. With a self-effacing sigh he shook his head, reminding himself of the past 8 hours.

 _Stars_ , he was tired.

He sat up straighter to coax himself more awake, and turned his head instead over the other shoulder in the direction of the sleep nook, his visor supplying into his visual the tiny blob of a heat signature.

The sensor read him the kid's projected temperature. It was still higher than usual; as in, what seemed be the normal for as long as Din had known the kid. That was all he had to go on. He knew nothing of this species (to say nothing else about taking care of children), so he was flying entirely without a map.

Flying without a map or any semblance of a plan had been his approach to his whole life, but this felt different somehow. Scarier, maybe. The consequences seemed worse than just being careless with his own life.

Map. Flying. Right. He came up here to pilot. Din glanced at the nav reading. They were still on-course for Tython, where Ahsoka had said the Jedi ruins would be.

He was to take Grogu there, where another Jedi may come for him. That was his charge, given to him by the Armorer, by his Creed, and that was what he was meant to do.

Except now the kid was sick and he didn't know why.

His gloved fingers fidgeted on the console as he stared at the passing stars. His mission was to deliver the child to the Jedi. He couldn't fulfill his charge if his charge was dead. Maybe that was the cold way of looking at it; the analytical view of a hunter that had to take dangers day by day with measured detachment just to make it through to the next. It wasn't easy, but it was simple.

The alternative was to acknowledge the personal way of looking at it. The potential for loss. And _that_... that wasn't something he could do right then. There lay a door Din had locked a long time ago. He was in no mood to traverse those mental hallways.

Tython would have to wait. He dropped out of the set course and re-routed for the nearest inhabited planet, setting the nav system to warn him when they were an hour out.

Then he rose—every joint and old injury that had been left to his own shoddy healing skills protested at the movement—and descended from the cockpit, down the ladder that always creaked on the last step.

The kid... _Grogu_... was still in his hammock, not deeply asleep but definitely not awake. Din was careful not to jostle him as he settled himself into his own bunk, where he lay and shut his eyes, not bothering to remove the armor that remained. He was already well-used to sleeping in his helmet; it didn't take long to drift off into very welcome sleep.

The ship, creaking and old and worn, the witness to untold misfortunes past, the relic of many changing owners long-dead, continued its journey through the endless inky void, empty if not for those points of stars. Drifting along in a land that time forgot.

He dreamt uneasy dreams of dust and ash and the stench of burnt flesh.

He was awoken by crying—it took a few blinks to realize it wasn't his own, though the sound was so near—and an alarm blaring insistently.

It took too long to orient himself and blink out of the dream that left his mouth dry like it had been filled with dust. He didn't know how long he'd been asleep, but at some point in that time, the kid had climbed out of his hammock down into Din's bunk—as he often did—and burrowed himself in the crook of his arm, where he currently lay, crying even though his eyes were still squeezed shut.

Was the kid still asleep?

There was too much happening, too much noise and the alarm was still blaring, so he scooped up the kid and carried him along up to the cockpit.

With a fist he punched the button to silence the alarm and re-focused to the crying bundle in his arm, his approach to the kid significantly more gentle than the one to his ship, as he brushed his shoulder to rouse him.

“Kid?” Din tried softly, “Kid, come on, wake up,”

With a full-body jerk his eyes flew open and darted around, confused and dazed and—Din's heart sank as he realized—scared.

“Hey,” he murmured, rubbing the child's back as cries quieted into whimpers, seeming to slowly remember where he was, “hey, it's okay, you're alright, it's just me.”

Those eyes turned up at him, watering as they searched up into an expressionless helmet for something; Din didn't know what.

“Did you have a nightmare?” Din surmised as quiet tears began to fall from the kid's eyes. He drew him closer into his arms, “I did too, but it's alright, it's not real. You're alright.”

The kid shuddered in tiny, silent sobs in the crook of his shoulder. His breathing was still raspy and crackling on each inhale, worse than yesterday, which gave Din pause as a tendril of anxiety wriggled back in and took fresh hold into his conscious.

He wasn't sure when this attachment started, but Din remembered after first opening the pram on Arvala-7, he had just stared.

He stared for a long time at big brown eyes looking up at him, not breaking eye contact even to shoot the droid that would lay smoking next to him for who knew how long.

He had felt outside of himself, like he was an onlooker from afar. He saw himself as a child staring up from that bunker. And prickling against the edges of his awareness there was this sense of _something_ reaching out to him so overwhelming that he found his arm physically reaching back.

How was this thing even able to meet his eyes through his visor? How had those large eyes bore right into him, making him check and double check that he was still wearing his helmet, since he felt like he was being laid bare.

Why did wide curiosity morph into something that looked like recognition? _That_ had finally made him turn and walk out of the building, unease following him and settling over his skin like a clouded storm.

He had refused to look at the kid again until he vaporized a raider and was confronted with those eyes again. _Stupidly_ trusting eyes, not so much as flinching even as Din had just dematerialized someone right in front of him, his pulse rifle trained in his direction. And he had that exposed feeling again, as well as something heavier beginning to settle in the back of his mind. Guilt, maybe.

There was a similar feeling to that old guilt swirling in his belly as the kid looked up at him now from his shoulder. He found himself turning his gaze away so those large eyes couldn't look into his, the way they somehow always did.

Instead, he looked at the nav, and quickly suppressed a curse as he bent down to punch more butttons.

The ship lurched as they dropped out of hyperspace.

The alarm hadn't gone off as a proximity alert, it had been a malfunction warning. The thing had borked and took them off the set course.

“Listen,” he groused at the durasteel as though it could hear, flicking open a panel on the nav dash, “the last thing I need is my own ship sabotaging me.”

He heaved another sigh—for good measure—eyes raking over the definitely-fried circuits.

“Ok buddy, I'm gonna have to do some repairs, I'll set you down—”

A whine of protest was a firm suggestion against that recourse.

“Or not, ok. That's..fine.”

Blinking heavily with swollen eyes, the kid settled his head back against his shoulder, in the space between his chest plate and the pauldron that bore the mudhorn signet.

There was that feeling again, twisting itself into something even stranger as he listened to labored breaths.

Din was holding a sick kid he wasn't meant to keep, in a ship that fell apart a little more everyday.

He knew that _feeling_ was at least partially fear. The kind of fear that left him questioning the ground he stood on, as if were due to give out beneath him at any moment.

The kid snuggled in closer, and Din lifted his hand to brush one of his ears.

“That's fine,” he repeated, softer this time.

He went to gather up his tools, already knowing several of them would be strewn around the ship.

Usually, repairing his ship gave him a quiet respite from thoughts that strayed from the task at hand, but his thoughts had decided to wander today.

As he retrieved his spanner from a lonely corner in the cargo hold, his mind thought back to his own nightmare. It wasn't an unusual occurrence, but his nightmares usually took the same forms.

This one was different. It had a foreignness that was difficult to describe, like the feeling of wearing someone else's shoes.

Instead of other mandalorians, he had been surrounded by dead children in robes, eyes open and glassy, their bodies marred by gruesome burns, the overwhelming acridity of burnt flesh and fabric stifling enough to close his throat.

He had only a niggling suspicion about that, but it was something that would have to be packed and put away for now, there were more pressing needs. And he forced his train of thought back onto that.

He spent about the next hour with his elbows (or rather, one elbow) deep in the piloting circuitry. His task was made more difficult by the way he divvied up the use of his hands. In one arm, he held the baby, who was clutching onto him sleepily but at least not fussing, and the other he used to work.

 _Stupid ship_.

Of course the thing was constantly breaking. Even if it wasn't so old as to pre-date the Empire, the thing had been stripped and reassembled and torn apart and garbled back together so many times that something was bound to fail. Multiple times over. And, while Din could almost sympathize, feeling more and more threadbare himself lately, he did _not_ have the patience for this today.

“Fucking piece of junk,” he grumbled as one of the exposed circuits shocked his glove.

Of course the kid, out of it though he was, perked up a little at that, and Din _knew_ that mischievous glint.

“No.”

He stopped _that_ in its tracks before the little one could even begin to get his mouth to form an 'f' noise.

“No.” he repeated with all the finality and authority he could muster, “Those are words for adults to use,” his working hand briefly adjourning from its task to fish around for the silver ball that was still in his pocket.

He offered the ball again to the kid, who took it and merely held it lethargically.

It had been one of the first things he'd tried to soothe the kid with last night, but to no success. Din never understood what it was about the silver ball that made the kid love it so much, but even that hadn't helped. Which should've been indicative to how bad he must've been feeling.

That hadn't been the first hint that something was amiss. The kid, who usually found some odd or end of semi-important ship parts to use as a toy, or creative means of entertainment, would not play.

Din's first thought had honestly been, _was he mad at him_?

They'd spent a lot of time in space, and Din had discovered that the kid really liked hide and seek. Like, _really_ liked the game. So, when they found themselves settling for long stretches of space travel, they always struck up a game. He wasn't sure when it settled into routine, but he found himself doing it like clockwork—after committing the nav into hyperspace, he would sit back in the pilot's chair and look over his shoulder as though ordaining silent permission to the kid, whose eyes would light up as he giggled and troddled off to find a hiding spot.

And Din, ever the pragmatist, had played along, thinking it could only be good for the kid to hone his hiding skills in case there was ever genuine danger (and he discovered the kid was, in fact, _really good_ at hiding)

But after leaving Corvus, as the ship settled into the familiar hum of hyperspace, when he'd usually be set off on the first finding game, the kid had just sat there, ears drooped.

 _Were you worried I'd leave you there?_ Din had thought silently.

Din hadn't _wanted_ to leave him. Hell, he'd spent so long just holding the kid, dragging out the goodbye for as long as possible, that Ahsoka had had to come to his ship. He didn't want to, but he had to, it was best for both of them. But he hadn't been able to put that into words then, and he couldn't now, so he'd just sat there with his shoulders stiff, the air feeling heavy with things unsaid.

He had been more relieved then he wanted to admit when Ahsoka had refused, but looking back at it from the kid's perspective...

He delicately replaced the panel and secured it; he shoved the tools aside, but left them out.

What was the nearest inhabited planet now? Azrinth? He ran it through in his brain, weighing the risks and advantages. It would do. He set the coordinates, hoping this time it would follow through.

“That's as good as it'll get. What do you think?” he asked out of habit, expecting to hear a trill in response, but the kid just drooped against him.

He chewed his lip, “Time to get food, you need to at least get fluids in you, alright?”

He was out of his depth.

Subduing bounties into compliance or dragging them along if they refused was a completely different skillset to gently persuading a toddler to take a medicine he did not want to take.

Being swallowed by a Krayt dragon was easier than this.

“It's medicine, kid. You need it.”

The object under the baby's intense scrutiny and gaze of unbridled vitriol was a vial of fever reducers Din managed to find in his medkit against not much else that was very helpful at the moment. He'd made sure to measure out half the dose he would take for himself, and less of that just to make it easier for the kid to take, but considering how hard it had even been to get the kid to eat anything (he'd finally reluctantly accepted a quarter of a protein packet and a half of a cup of water, which hardly felt like a victory) he didn't have much optimism.

Part of it seemed ridiculous, truthfully. Knowing the things that the kid had very willingly put in his mouth and consumed, (live frogs and insects and anything else he could get his curious little claws on came to mind), Din knew he was not fussy with food, typically. Yet a chalky tablet was where he drew the line. _Right_.

“Listen, kid,” he sighed, adjusting him in his arms and leaning heavily against one of the cargo bay's support beams, “Sometimes we have to bear unpleasant things that'll help us in the long run. I know it's awful, I wish it wasn't but I don't have anything else, and I know you feel bad, but this should help, at least a little. Please.”

The usual methods of bribery—and he wasn't above that, especially right now when he was tired enough to feel himself sway—namely the ball that he wasn't very interested in and food he wouldn't eat, weren't currently available to Din so he fell back on the first thing that came to mind.

“If you take this, I promise I'll teach you how to swear,” he offered.

The kid considered the offending tablet suspiciously. He did that for so long that Din had been about to consider other options, until he reluctantly opened his mouth. Din gingerly fed him the tablet, rubbing circles into his back to soothe him through it.

In spite of himself and everything, he couldn't help but feel the corners of his lips tug at the puckered face the kid pulled as he cooed out a highly indignant “blech.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Baby's first doctor's appointment.

Azrinth IV was a well-populated planet along an outlying branch of Minian trade corridor, which bisected the Outer Rim and Mid Rim. The neighboring planets in its system were rich in raw materials, but IV had the distinction of the most habitable atmosphere. Textiles, fabrics, dyes, minerals, paints, stoneworks were in ample supply. In the service of artisans and tailors, the planet's most notable commodity, these materials became goods of value and beauty.

He'd been here once, briefly, for a job. The client had been a proud and disgruntled artist whose target had been forging his work and selling the pieces illegally for decades. The job had been quick and simple, and good pay, but Din hadn't cared to linger on the busy planet for long.

The planet's numbers didn't owe entirely to permanent residents, rather, a constant heavy influx and outflow of merchants and markets and visitors.

Closing in on the planet, its continents a patchwork mosaic of gold and olive greens, Din continued his course now to the coastal tradecity Rhiimne.

Sometimes, he'd found, crowds _could_ be a good thing. In a dense enough populace he could almost blend in with the sea of faces. In high-turnover places like these—unlike the stagnant sands of Tattooine where strangers always stood out like a sore—Mandalorians weren't the most uncommon occurrence and so maybe, _maybe_ he could slip in and out without garnering the wrong attention.

Yet, as he queued up to dock, ferried in amongst the swarm of ships in the fore-view of a people-packed thoroughfare, his shoulders tightened and the leather of his gloves groaned as he death-gripped the steering apparatus. He resisted the sudden urge to reach out to the kid sitting groggy in his lap. This didn't feel safe.

A chirp met his ears, perhaps the kid sensing his spike of anxiety, and Din responded with a hand affectionately brushing an ear.

“It's ok,” he said, possibly more to himself, “we don't have stay here long.”

Even through the gloves he could feel how feverish the kid was, slumped drowsily against him in his lap, breath wheezing in and out unsteadily, which motivated Din all the more.

The landing was fortunately uneventful (if gratingly prolonged) and infinitely more graceful than the one on Trask had been. In a swift move, he powered down the ship's systems, and readied to leave.

Din cinched the strap of the kid's carrying satchel, so that the bundle was held to his chest rather than hanging at his hip. It would allow him to better monitor his breathing, especially through the bustling noise he was expecting.

He regarded the baby, who was shivering despite the moderate temperature in the hold, his clawed hand resting on the surface of the beskar as he seemed to try to press himself as closely as possible to the unforgiving surface.

Something within him wrenched. He looked smaller than Din had ever seen him.

He began to unbuckle his chest plate, thinking to remove it to draw Grogu in, so that he wouldn't just be cradled against metal. To keep him warm. To keep him close.

But his brain began to catch up with him. His armor was one of the few things keeping him safe, and everyday there seemed to be someone new after him, or after the kid. He was straying out into public where he was a giant target in shining armor.

It would need to remain.

As a poor substitute, he drew his arms around to cradle the satchel-bound baby, his gloved hand cushioning Grogu's head, to hopefully comfort him and to shield him from view of passersby. He made a tiny, raspy whimper, and Din hoped this would be enough.

He descended the ramp and ventured into the city.

Being situated on the continental west coast gave Rhiimne a temperate climate with a sea-salted air. But it was unlike the cold, clammy marine air of Trask. For one thing, it was warmer, as well as brighter, the afternoon sun casting light off the sandstone buildings and intricate travertine-tiled walkways to give the whole area a golden glow.

The city was built flush along jagged limestone and dolomite cliffsides. Walled plazas were stacked like tiers along the undulating landscape, which, though it wasn't green, was by no means barren, hillsides covered in some kind of golden grass brambled with fragrant sage and cypress shrubs.

Like Trask, however, it was crowded, but instead of seafarers and coastal laborers, the tree-dotted plazas were lined with multi-colored tents of vendorbooths, tended by traders displaying their wares of fabrics and spices—of the non-narcotic variety—and colorful woven crafts and metalworks.

This tradecity was on the wealthier side for this slice of the galaxy, and there wasn't a guild presence here that Din was aware of, which had been his intention.

But he was wary; he couldn't help but feel a little out of place here. After years of bounty hunting he'd become used to frequenting hives of scum and villainy. That's not to say that villains weren't everywhere in the galaxy (he'd been to Canto Bight enough times to know that) but here, the populace mostly leaned mostly toward merchants and craftsmen and travelers and families.

He felt something jostle his side and his hand reflexively clamped to the blaster on his hip, before he turned and realized it was just a pair of children running through the plaza, laughing, chasing birds.

He ignored the wary glances from faces in the crowd in his immediate proximity. He was used to staring.

They didn't matter. Neither did the bristling discomfort or the gnawing void in his gut that urged him to leave this place. All that mattered was his goal.

He ducked into a droid shop.

His original plan had been to acquire a medic droid. But he was beginning to backpedal on that.

Medic droids were a pretty standard go-to for the runarounds of the galaxy, especially bounty hunters.

Droids were anonymous, they were automatons to carry out tasks given to them. They usually didn't have ulterior motives. By any metric, they were the safer option.

But Din had actively avoided them, though it had been inconvenient.

Which meant he lacked the experience of their use now.

Surveying the medic droids displayed, he thought of IG-11. Old mistrust rose in his belly, the same that had risen when the unit had walked into Kuiil's hut, claiming to be programmed anew to nurse and protect, as if it hadn't spent years adhering precisely to its base programming, hunting and killing. The dichotomy was laughable and ridiculous.

_“That thing tried to kill the baby.”_

Irony had been lost on him as he'd said that; it was what he had once set out to do once, though he hadn't known it then.

And there he was now, not unlike the now-dead droid, trying to nurse and protect. It was a foreign role. Far from the role he had ingrained for years, of seek and hunt and destroy. Rinse and repeat. He didn't have circuits he could reprogram, couldn't re-wire his motherboard and rebuild his programming anew. Sometimes he wished it was that simple, for the number of days and nights he stood, feeling lost.

Moreover, rather than being the hunter, he had spent the past year being the hunted. Not just outrunning his emotional demons but pursuant enemies that sought him and his clan harm. Having to look over his shoulder wasn't new, but to this degree, for this long was unprecedented, and it was wearing him thin.

Between the long-term fatigue and the stinging in his eyes from the sleepless night, fear for the well-being of the _reason_ for it all lying near his chest, currently letting out raspy breaths, he was simply too tired to parse through his prejudices that day. He just needed to get his kid some help.

His kid... _the_ kid.

He found himself in the city medcenter, a large, clean building with ornate decorations. Intricately carved stone columns arching over him, splitting off into multi-leveled halls and a peristyle surrounding an inner courtyard.

Din was aware of every door to the room, every hallway off the lobby. He'd already taken measured attention of every individual in the room, the ones leaving and arriving, and the Tholothian at the desk looking expectantly up at him.

He said, “My kid... he's sick.”

But he didn't notice that until after.

“You can set him on the examining table”

He really didn't want to do that. Even a step away seemed too far away from him.

What was wrong with him?

The medic, a short human with dark hair, looked at his hesitance with knowing eyes. “First child?”

He didn't have the energy to give that question the complexity it was due, but he also didn't have the time to let his mind linger on doubts, “Yes,” he acknowledged simply. Grogu's ears perked up a little, and Din avoided meeting his eyes.

“They grow up so fast,” the medic said with a smile.

He had to suppress a snort. The kid was fifty years old and still a toddler. It was unlikely he'd acquire the use of full sentences within Din's lifetime.

Shoving his reluctance down with every other ugly feeling he kept locked away, he gently set the kid onto the table, but only took a half-step back.

He was tightly strung, and he knew it, but anything could become a threat in a moment's notice, and half of his mind was occupied with cataloging potential escape routes. This exam room had the door out into the hallway, as well as a window that viewed the inner atrium. It was open-air, a corner of sunlight still streaming through.

“It's alright,” she reassured, seeming to pick up on some of this, “First-time parents are always so nervous with these things.”

 _Galactic_ understatement to his mental state. If he was wound any tighter he would snap in two.

“How long has he been ill?”

“A couple days. He's had a consistent fever that's gotten worse.”

She leaned down to look at him, an instrument in her hands, “We get all kinds here, but I'm not familiar with his species. It sounds like a respiratory infection based on his breathing, but I'll go ahead and scan him to see if there's anything else.”

The medic passed the scanner in her hands over the kid, its light shining into his eyes. The kid blinked in discomfort.

And then there was short chaos.

There was a piercing cry and in a _second_ Din had reclaimed Grogu back into his hold. His arms being occupied on a different priority had been the only reason he hadn't immediately reached for his blaster, giving his mind time enough time to catch up with what happened.

The kid was letting out distressed cries not unlike his nightmare-cries, but now with a colicky edge to them. The medic had jumped back, startled, but otherwise was the same, instrument still in hand. Nothing else in the room had changed.

He wasn't sure what had set the kid off, but dismissing the existence of threats, Din refocused on soothing him.

“You're alright,” he whispered as low as he thought he could hear, “You're alright, you're alright, it's okay.”

The medic stood back up straight, eyes watching the pair.

“He's nervous,” she noted, quickly recomposed.

Din wasn't sure what to say to that, and had only the truth, “He's had a rough beginning.”

He saw her eyes track up and down his armor, and could imagine the way she was filling that information in.

She wasn't really wrong, he realized.

“Life of a Mandalorian, I suppose,” she said evenly.

And she wasn't wrong.

He didn't know what else to say, so what came out was honest.

“I...I really wish I could give him better than that.”

It hurt how much he meant it. The kid quieted at that moment. Sniffling thickly, he burrowed himself into Din's embrace.

The medic's eyes seemed to soften a little.

“We get Mandalorians through here, sometimes,” the medic said, voice and eyes soft, “And you don't see it too often, but,” she said, “they seem to be devoted parents.”

Din was quiet, unsure what to say.

“May I continue?” she asked gently, eyes flicking between the kid and him, she gestured the instrument, “I don't need to use this if it bothers him.”

Din canted his head down.

“Kid?” he asked, seeking permission, “She wants to check you over, she'll help you feel better. Is that ok?”

There was a lingering hint of wariness in the child's face as he looked up at Din, but he gave an acquiescent hum, and he moved to set him back on the examining table.

“It's alright, you can hold him,” the medic interjected, “he seems more comfortable with you anyway.”

She checked his breathing, his ears, his eyes, his nose, throat, and vitals. She took a swab and confirmed that it was a viral infection.

“Common strain,” she mentioned, conversationally, “Kids will pick up these things so easily. Has he attended school?” ( _He has_ , he answered unsurely, omitting the _once_ ) “That's how children are,” she said with a shrug, “Little new bodies in a big galaxy of pathogens they've never met before.”

He just nodded as the medic told him more about children and developmental stages while she handled medicines and instruments. He _was_ listening, but at the same time, a part of his mind kept stuttering and replaying something, like a broken holo.

She broke him out of his rumination.

“He's adopted then?”

He could feel his brow crumple at the question.

“What makes you say?”

She pointed to their hands, where they held each other, Grogu's tiny claws in two of Din's fingers. He wasn't sure when they started doing that, but they slipped into the habit of holding hands (or fingers) as if it was their natural place to be.

“Your hands, they're... a little different,” she smiled, turning towards the window, opening a cabinet of vials.

Din never understood non-Mandalorian's distinction between adopted and biological children. How could you see an abandoned child and not feel the need to care for it, as if you weren't a child in need of caring at one point? And if you named that child your own, what difference did it make if they had similar genetics or not?

And conversely, if one _did_ have a biological child, and they abandoned them, how could they call themselves a parent?

He looked at their hands. His own sapient five-fingered hand and the kid's much smaller, greener, three-digited one.

“They're the same in any way that matters,” he stated simply. It felt like dodging one question, and admitting the answer to another.

She just nodded, clicking a vial into a hypospray.

“This is a cortisone shot, low dose for him,” she explained, “It should help ease his breathing while he heals.”

The kid whined a little, but accepted it with Din's coaxing.

“How long will you on-planet?”

His head reeled. He had no idea when the rug would be pulled out from under them, and they would have to leave abruptly as they always did. It never took very long.

Finding out Moff Gideon was alive had been a horrible discovery, a feeling of heavy dread had followed him since then. Every action felt laced with urgency, like he was running out of time.

The day was advancing, the atrium was almost in shadow. Time was passing.

“I'm not sure. A few days if we can spare it.”

“Here's a hypospray of antivirals to give him, once a day,” she handed him said-medication, “Keep giving him fluids, food if you can. If you're still planetside, check back in a few days and we'll see how he's doing.”

He nodded his understanding, said his thanks outwardly to the medic (and inwardly that there had been no betrayals and backstabbing yet), and promptly left.

He hadn't intended to linger in the marketplace, the shadows were growing longer, the sky was getting darker, and he'd been making a bee-line back to the docking port.

While on-planet, they would sleep on the ship, Din had decided. It would be too risky to seek lodging in the city—to not even mention his depleting credits.

But in one of the booths he spotted a jar of pickled frog eggs (the less sentient kind, he really hoped) being sold, and paused, thinking. At least that would go down easily for the kid who still needed to eat something.

And they did. Back on the ship, the kid was subdued, but eating the eggs without fuss.

It was the smallest of small wins, but it was like a salve to his nerves all the same. Din felt slightly more at ease with everything, enough so that, when the kid sleepily ignored the last egg he offered, curiosity took hold.

 _Oh what the hell_ , he tipped back his helmet to pop it into his own mouth.

It was... not nasty, but not something he'd ever choose to eat. Definitely not something he understood the kid liking so much, but, well, that's what it was. The kid would be pleased about not having to share those.

As the evening wound down, he did what he often defaulted to, surveying and mentally cataloging what problems there were on the _Crest._ This would be a rare opportunity for downtime, so with the baby still on his chest, he walked through the ship, up the ladder with the creaky step, tweaking the nav system again to make sure a circuit hadn't fried while he wasn't looking, and back down.

_Squeak._

Din took a moment to glare at the offending step beneath his boot. Greef's team had done a decent job putting the ship back together even with the limited time, but being so non-vital, the first step—one of the casualties in the crash on that forsaken ice planet—had been merely wedged back into precarious place. Din would have to solder the thing back on to affix it properly. But that would have to be later; another thing to add to the list.

He busied himself instead in the lower hold, all while toting around the kid who, though not markedly better, didn't seem to be any worse, and at least seemed to be breathing a little easier.

Quietly, he sorted through some crates of old cargo, messes of old inventory, until it was time for bed.

The kid was behaving very mildly. There was no crying, no fussing tonight, but something was nagging at Din's mind as he sat up in his bunk. He cradled the kid who was tucked in a blanket he'd wrapped him with, unwilling to set him far away just yet.

Pieces of his armor were shed and set aside, to make Grogu a little more comfortable. To give him something that felt a little more human.

Stewing over the outburst with the medic, he had finally realized the resemblance.

“I need you to know this, because it's important” he said softly to the kid blinking heavily in his arms.

He didn't look away as brown eyes pierced through his visor.

“I'm never going to abandon you.”

The bundle beneath him cooed in response, and it reminded him of the shootout in the town square almost a year ago. His thumb lightly traced the side of his little face. He looked down at bright eyes that somehow didn't hate him.

“What happened on Nevarro, I shouldn't have...” he'd given up the kid, who had cried as he was taken away and he couldn't stop seeing it, “I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. That won't ever happen again.”

Promises were dangerous in a galaxy like this.

How this reckoned with his whole goal, returning the kid to the Jedi, he wasn't even sure yet. That road was complicated and twisting and filled with locked doors.

All he knew was that he meant that, and he felt that down to his bones, as much as he could sincerely mean anything.

_I won't abandon you._

It was easier to acknowledge than the smaller voice in his mind, that sounded a lot like a child, supplying:

_I can't lose you._

The kid fell asleep soon, but Din stayed awake for a long time, holding him, listening intently to rhythmic breaths, counting them as if they were the minutes he lived by.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Din's certified Dad Behavior exhibit #327: "excuse me I would like to speak to an actual human not a robot please 😤"


End file.
